Bikini Condom, You Never Had a Chance

Pity the poor Bikini Condom. Launched in the early 1990's, it was overshadowed by its more popular cousin, the female condom. Both were part of the contraceptive group the FDA gave the perfectly hideous label "vaginal pouches." ("Hon, I need some quarters for the meter. Can you check your vaginal pouch?") 

And when you're playing second fiddle to the female condom--a device most Americans have never actually seen, let alone used--let's just say you're not gonna be sitting at the popular table. Not that there is a popular table for contraceptives. Or if there is, I was, sadly not invited to sit there.

Bikini Condoms look "like a g-string panty with a condom pouch" wrote an unnamed author in a 1991 issue of Contraceptive Technology, a magazine which I get only for the crossword puzzle. 

The condom "is automatically introduced into the vagina with coitus," the writer continues, masterfully making a sentence about sex totally void of eroticism. The odd language continues to the last sentence: "They are so novel they appeal to people with an 'open mind.'" "Open mind" is inexplicably in quotes, signifying, to my mind, that the author is does not particularly care for people with open minds. Or perhaps "coitus."

So why aren't we all sportin' vaginal pouches this very second? I mean, they empowered women and junk, right? Well, offhand, I can venture several guesses:

1. The term "vaginal pouch" could be entirely to blame.

2. Its look and feel and pretty much everything about it. "Manufactured all in one piece from thin, cream-colored latex," according to the Powerhouse Museum in Australia, "It consists of a belt, which fits around the hips, attached to a pouch-like tube." In summation, it combines a pouch-like tube (oh yeah), a belt reminiscent of grandma's old-timey maxi pads, and cream-colored latex, which we all know is the very sexiest latex color.

3. It is thicker than a regular condom, for those who like their sensation reduced as much as possible.

4. The whole clothing-as-contraceptive idea. (However, other clothing/contraceptive combos such as pleated khakis, holiday sweaters and men's jeans shorts, are still in widespread use.) 

5. Reusability. It can be reused 5 to 10 times. I'm as green as the next girl,** but even I would be hesitant to drag out some raggedy-ass cream-colored condom for the 9th time.

6. General confusion/inherent paradox: "Bikini" = sexy. "Condom" = not that sexy, but sex-related, at least. And yet, "bikini condom" = so not sexy. This, my friend is your Zen koan for the day, bikini condom-style.

xoxo
jill

* (if you'd like to read more about "vaginal pouches"--and who the hell wouldn't?--see also: Female Condom, Where Art Thou?, How to Behave in the Presence of a Female Condom and  Someone Who Actually Used The Female Condom.)

** I have been known to force only-marginally-interested children to behold my compost pile, which in several states is legally considered eco-terrorism.

(photo source)

SEO and a Can of Beans.

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

"I saw this and thought of you."

Whenever someone tells me, "I saw this and thought of you," it's never about helping orphans or something--I don't know--reputable. No, it's always about some weird-ass horse fetish gear or a big honking dildo or something. Or, like this letter today, a big honking wooden dildo.

Writes dear reader Tara, who cheekly titled her email "Family Wood":

So, I saw a story on "Paul Merton in Europe" last night on Discovery World HD & thought of you. [editor's note: SEE!!!] The story was about the Trury family in Germany & they make wooden sex toys. As a family. The mother & daughter literally sit across the table from each other sanding, staining & varnishing dildos. It was fascinating & I had to share! Hopefully you can snag a clip somewhere on the internets. I didn't have any luck. Below is an excerpt from the episode description:

"For his last German experience, Paul journeys south to the picturesque woods that inspired the Brothers Grimm fairy tales. Here he meets the Trury family. While making ornamental mushrooms in his woodwork shop, father Elmar noticed he had created what looked more like a dildo. Thus began a unique family business making wooden sex toys. While Elmar looks after production, eldest son Stefan runs the website and matriarch Maria handles the varnishing."
 
Here is an article http://www.thelocal.de/society/20080305-10507.html and their website http://www.waldmichlsholdi.de/index.php/
 
Love your blog!
Tara, who will never look at a spruce the same way again.

I didn't find any video, but I quite enjoyed their web site, if only for this picture of the mom, Maria. She doesn't look horribly pleased about Elmar's mushroom/dildo epiphany, although perhaps I'm reading too much into it.

I like to picture that moment when Elmar picked up the carved ornamental mushroom and announced to Maria, "Hey...you know what this looks like?" (Credit where credit is due: Pretty much everyone in the entire history of time who's seen a mushroom thinks, "Hmmm, looks like a penis," but Elmar is the rare person who actually Did Something About It.)

Maria, who knows how Elmar is, frantically searches her brain looking for some sort of non-penis answer, but comes up with nothing. Maria briefly wonders if she, Elmar, and the ornamental mushroom have an intimate encounter in their future and is undecided whether she is pleased or not at the prospect.

I'm guessing something went down with the couple and that particularly fetching mushroom, because you don't just unleash a sex toy on the public without some product testing. And in light of that, I am re-looking at the picture of Maria and have just decided that she's not, in fact, making the face of a long-suffering spouse, but rather has a little bit of a sly smirk happening. Like, "I am going to fuck the shit out of this bad boy once you photographers are gone." The excessively long wooden dildo (damn, girl!) she is polishing so carefully is, I'm guessing, Just For Mama.

Anyway, besides the worries you're probably having about such a big-ass dildo and Maria's delicate internal organs, you're also probably wondering about splinters. Fear not, the family uses a special non-toxic coating and non-splintering spruce wood. (There is no truth to the rumor, which I am starting right now, about Elmar's first wife Inga and a horrible accident with an unstable knotty pine prototype.)

Actually, I love this whole thing. The DIY-ness, the groovy Euro-family living in their rustic cottage (which I am picturing being inside a hollow tree like the Keebler Elves or Berenstain Bears), and the German product names like Barenzunge "tongue of a bear" or Einhorn "unicorn." I even love the delightfully translated web page with such proclamations as, "Wooden toy are feeling warm and lovely."  

I grew up in an open-minded liberal family in the 1970s. I can't imagine a more appropriate homage to that era than expressing my sexually open, eco-friendly, handcrafted, shop local, one planet-lovin' values than making love to a beautiful wooden dildo named after a fucking...UNICORN.  It could only be more perfect if I were also wearing homemade macrame panties while simultaneously reciting Love Is... comics. In Esperanto. 

And if you're still back on the splinter idea, remember than no sex toy is 100% safe. Or at least not according to this totally gross article, Women Sues Over Wild Vibrator Ride That Sent Her to Hospital, sent in by reader Wendy, who saw it, and *sigh* thought of me.

xoxox
jill

p.s. re-running this because the last post had weird floating text about a "non-descipt entry hole" hovering eerily over the post. Although if I were to be haunted, I suppose that's how it would go down.

Also,
--Let me know if you're having trouble (or not) with IBWMW Kindle subscriptions.
--My newest Cosmo piece The 5 Most Mind-Boggling DIY Sex Toys is up. It spent some time in the Top 10 of Cosmo's most-read articles but has since been cruelly edged out by "Why You Need a 2-Piece Dress."